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Posts Tagged ‘Hermitage’

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When a restaurant staff speaks the language of it’s food, it bodes well for a traditional dining experience. So it is at the Hermitage restaurant on Robson Street. Your first taste of a truly French evening comes with the impeccably presented staff who greet you and seat you with courteous aplomb and a delicious French accent. It may be a small thing, but it eases you into the menu with comfort.

There are a few things that set the Hermitage apart. Rather than having a noisy, energetic bistro feel, this is where you go to enjoy fine French dining in a comfortably elegant setting. There are tables and booths, indirect lighting, clean white table cloths, and walls lined with dark wood, French treasures, and bottles of wine. As is the tradition in France, the servers are there to cater to your every need. And as you finish your various courses, all the remains including your silverware will be swept away in an instant by the attentive staff and replaced equally efficiently and unobtrusively.

If you decide to begin your evening with a bottle of wine, there’s an extensive wine list to peruse. However, if you don’t have a particular wine in mind, there are eight special wines from Burgundy that are recommended by owner Herve Martin. The three whites, four reds and one sparkling wine all come from Chateau de Chamilly, a winery owned and operated by Herve’s sister and located just outside from his original home of Beaune, the capital of Burgundy. These wines are specific and exclusive to the Hermitage restaurant and while all are most likely equally entertaining, the Bourgogne pinot noire is an excellent smooth choice that will ready your palate for the fine cuisine to come.

A good lace to start would be the “asperges verte avec sauce morilles” This translate into green asparagus with a wonderful morel mushroom sauce. Light and delicious, it’s an excellent alternative to a salad. Plump praws sautéed with strips of fennel and scented with oregano and garlic, are an other satisfying option. But let’s move on to the entrees. Last week’s specials included duck Magret, a wonderful breast of duck served in a leaf-shaped slices fanned out on a plate lightly covered with a rich pink peppercorn, brandy and cream sauce. As with much of the French cuisine, the attention to sauces is what makes many of the dishes. Also on special was rainbow trout filet Grenobloise, a delicate dish enhanced with the tang of lemon and capers, butter and fresh herbs, dotted with homemade croutons. All herbs used at the Hermitage are Fresh, which only adds to the care taken with individual dishes.

If you care to finish your repast with dessert, all the sinful choices are homemade. Chocolate cake, crème caramel, crème brulee, lemon tart or any of the others, you won’t be disappointed.

The Hermitage restaurant has been part of the Robson street scene for twenty years now, and Herve Martin has put his extensive history as an executive chef to good use. If you want to be served in style yet relax in comfort and not be rushed, the Hermitage, is hands down, a French favorite.

The Hermitage restaurant is located at 1025 Robson street, in the Robson galleria and is open for lunch Monday to Friday and every night for dinner. Reservation are a must. Call 604-689-3237.

By Bonnie Bowman

The Georgia Straight

August 2007

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Fondues, resurrected from the 70’s, are still going strong as hipster communication food.

Chef and owner Herve Martin always has fondue available on his menu, you just have to ask and give him 48 hour notice if this is your plan for your unforgettable evening at the Hermitage restaurant.

“Oil is far too ‘evy to digest,” says Herve Martin, of his beef tenderloin fondue. “So, we do it in wine. In Burgundy, it’s pinot, pinot, pinot.” The meal also includes cabbage and bacon soup, a green salad, potatoes, a cheese plate and for dessert, pears poached in red wine with black current sorbet.

The beauty of the fondue, Burgundy style, is that the flavors are so much more present. It’s a joy to bite into a piece of meat that has been slowly cooking in red wine. It’s so much more than just dinner, it’s a very social and fun way to have dinner. You have more time for interaction and talk as your meats are cooking.

It’s a perfect date dinning experience, gets families to talk more around the table, but best of all, it’s a very healthy way to eat.

It’s a perfect winter meal and it is now served until spring as a promotion for $49 per person. But, is also available year round. Ask and you shall receive.

Herve Martin says parties have booked out the entire restaurant for a fondue party.

By Mia Stainsby

The Vancouver Sun

February 2005

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Part of a review of dine out Vancouver 2006.

Then we were off to Herve Martin’s venerable the Hermitage. Herve, who was the first executive chef at the newly-opened Pan Pacific hotel in 1986, is the respected veteran chef and owner of this charming and elegant restaurant on Robson st. Herve has had the Hermitage for the past 18 years and through his culinary prowess and business acumen has attracted dinning customers from all parts of the world to sample his authentic French cuisine and fine French wines.

We began our preview menu with executive chef Gilles Deroff’s $35 eating odyssey with a delightful ficherman’s soup and tasty ham terrine, followed by yummy tastes of the tree dine out choices – The honey glazed duck confit, stuffed red snapper and buffalo short ribs. Crème caramel or poached pears were the dessert choice. Amazing! Probably the best value of all of the dine out Vancouver venue. A must see and taste for the best French restaurant in Vancouver.

Wether it’s dine out Vancouver or not, the Hermitage restaurant will always provide it’s clients with the best food quality, best service and ambiance you can ever wish for.

It is Vancouver best French dinning that brins you right back, if you have been there, to France. If you have not been to France yet, going to the Hermitage will certainly be the closest thing you can experience in Vancouver and it’s surroundings.

Make it a romantic night at the Hermitage.

By Joy Metcalfe

BC restaurant news

February 2006

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Musicians, Artists, film makers – We don’t tell them what and how to make their art, and it seems presumptuous to tell a chef what he can do best on a particular night. Spending $50 on a dinner is a serious evening’s entertainment, certainly not to be frittered away on passing whims. So, my partner and I call Herve Martin, at Hermitage, named a date and a time and asked for $50 dollars each worth of luxury and comfort. It’s an approach I recommend. Tell your favorites, how much you want to spend and leave the rest to him or her.

It was certainly an evening, and we started with a salad of lightly blanched, almost melting but crisp red cabbage and toasted walnuts dressed with walnut oil. – A very appropriate welcome to the advent of winter. A second course arrived: Red snapper, wrapped in cabbage (green this time) and Prosciutto. – The three little filets sitting along side a coulis of sweet tomatoes and balsamic vinegar. A very interesting approach to a simple fish like snapper.

For the main course, a pan-fried veal chop, simple with its pan juices, pommes Anna and a coloring of lightly poached vegetables. A veal chop like this is not a conversation piece but a really profound piece of meat, complete with it’s own handle of bone for picking up and gnawing. By the time we finished it we were almost two hours into dinner. Finally, for dessert, an other simplicity, a perfect finisher – A large semi-crisp crepe, stuffed with fresh raspberries and served with strawberry and vanilla ice cream.

An amazing evening and experience was created from start to finish at the Hermitage restaurant thanks to the expertise of chef and owner Herve Martin.

By Jamie Maw

Vancouver Magazine

October 2006

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